An International Incident

In order to make the World Cake for this children’s party, you’re going to need to start well ahead of time and have all your wits about you to avoid World War III.

First, you need to buy two round baking dishes. Sorry: first you need to source two round baking dishes and then figure out how to buy them. Good luck with that.

Next, you have to arrange the initiations. This involves creating  circular invites with plenty of precise instructions. You must “ask each child to dress in the costume of a special country or be ready to tell about one.” Realizing immediately that this proposition is likely to result in the faux pas of two or more children arriving dressed or prepared to tell about the same country, the good folks at Betty Crocker then advise: “it is a good idea to assign countries to the children to avoid duplication.” At this point you must get down on your knees and thank your lucky stars that Betty Crocker does not have a say in International Relations. They don’t even use the phrase “good idea” ironically.

At this point, before you’ve written out those invites, you must sit down and think about which child will represent which country. How ethnographically or politically correct are you going to be? And if you assign the ancestral home of one child, but an utterly alien one to another, what message will that send? What if some kid doesn’t want to be Zimbabwe? And if you avoid this problem by assigning each child random countries, how are they going to know what to wear?

This is when you break open that bottle of Scotch, because you’ve belatedly realized that costumes can’t be assigned to countries, as if countries were singular culturally heterogeneous and sported a “costume.” Come to think of it, how will the whole “tell about it” option go down? Will those party-goers dressed normally be forced to recite facts and figures about their assigned country before they’re allowed in? What if they haven’t done their homework? Pour yourself another glass: you’ve just realized you assigned homework as a condition of attending your kid’s party. You have utterly failed at parenting.

However, you’ve bought the two round baking dishes and cut out 12 globe-shaped invites, so you’re committed. There’s no way out. You consider the games suggestion: “hold a mini-Olympics” and remembered that one of the guests has a broken leg and another has asthma. The “shoe-kicking contest” they also suggest is out then, whatever that entailed.

You decide, three drinks in, to forego the whole United Nations parade, and just focus on the cake, and send out the invites and go to bed.

On the day of the party, you make the cake (not that hard, as it turns out), but discover, to your horror, that you have no idea how to draw an outline of the continents in chocolate icing piped from an envelope onto a spherical cake. You have a hard enough time doing this with a pencil on paper. There is no room for error. Can you pipe and consult a map at the same time? Can you stop the icing from oozing out of the envelope while you do so?

You decide to make the best of a bad situation by disguising the truth of your incompetence by decorating the entire cake in squiggles instead.

You console yourself with the thought that no-one will care.

Children’s Parties Card #6 Far Away Places, Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library, 1971

See Also: A SNAFU In The Jungle, Raggedy Ann Revisited, Horrorscope

Horrorscope

It had begun innocently enough: Henry’s Mom and Dad welcomed the guests and the parents dropping them off only stayed long enough to find out when to return to pick them up. The kids rushed in bearing their gifts, which were placed on a side table in the hall. Henry, who’d been waiting all day for the festivities to begin, grinned from ear-to-ear as he proudly showed off his new bike. It was purple, and had a banana seat and ape hanger handlebars with streamers.

But once everyone had arrived, Henry’s Mom (she said to call her Doreen) gathered everyone into the living room den and had them take off their shoes and sit in a circle on the shag carpet. Henry’s Dad (he said to call him Frank) turned down the lights and drew the curtains, so there was a lot of chatter, because this could only promise a really exciting game. Doreen put some music on the hi-fi, but it wasn’t party music; it was all sort of swirly. Frank plugged in a lava lamp and took his tie off. “Is everyone ready to learn what their futures hold?” Doreen asked, and all the boys shouted their assent.

Doreen sat down in the circle criss-cross-apple-sauce style and put her hands on her knees with her fingers pinched together, and asked everyone to do the same. There was some giggling, but they did it. Doreen started swaying a little, and then opened her eyes wide and said “Eric!” Eric grinned as his friends on either side poked him.

            “Eric!” Doreen continued, “You enjoy sports! You’re going to play baseball and make it to the major leagues!”

            Eric approved of this future wholeheartedly.

            Next, Doreen shifted and closed her eyes and opened them again and pointed to Peter, who hoped she’d predict he’d become an astronaut, like he hoped.

            “Peter!” she called, “You are into math and have a feel for calculations! You’re going to work at a big tax corporation as one of their accountants!”

            Peter looked dejected.

            “And you’re going to have a really nice car!” Doreen added. This softened the blow.

            “Me next, me next!” the boys shouted excitedly. Doreen moved again, closed her eyes, and opened them on Buddy.

            “Buddy!” she cried. Buddy hopped up and down on his behind awaiting his fate.

            “Buddy — I have bad news for you,” Doreen said. “You will be tempted by the dark side, and lead a life of crime.”

            “What?” Buddy exclaimed, but Doreen had moved on. The boys jostled, uneasy at this sudden turn in events, but expecting it to work out in the end.

            “Alex!” Doreen went on. “Alex, you will be a very successful businessman!” The boys cheered. “You will live in a huge mansion and marry a beautiful woman!” The boys roared. “But it won’t last!”

            Alex deflated. “It’s OK, nudged Ian, sitting next to him, “it isn’t real.”

            Doreen focused her attention on Boris, who stared back silently. “Boris!” She hesitated. “Boris! Your birth mother says she’s sorry, and regrets what she did. She wants me to tell you to avoid the evils of alcohol!”

            “Birth mother?” Boris said. The boys sat transfixed.

            Just as Doreen was about to reveal the fortune of another boy, Frank, who’d been smoking quietly in the corner, interrupted his wife by asking if anybody would like to loosen up a little, to which the party-goers responded gratefully. As they clambered up from the circle, Frank put some new music on the hi-fi and announced it was getting awfully hot in there. Doreen agreed, and started unbuttoning her blouse.

            “It’s the Age of Aquarius!” Frank shouted gleefully.

            At first, the boys were leaping about to the music, but as Henry’s parents began disrobing, the merriment came to an abrupt halt. Henry himself was missing. He must have slipped out.

            “That’s better,” Doreen announced as the last of her clothes came off, as if completely oblivious to the mortified stillness around her.

            “Come on, everybody,” Frank urged, pulling his pants down.

The boys rushed for the door, getting jammed in their rush to escape.

            “Where’s Henry?” Eric cried in a panic.

            They found him in the kitchen staring at his birthday cake. It was bright yellow, with the signs of the zodiac piped around the edge in yellow icing. The center held a sun made out of candy corn.

            “What’s wrong with your Mom and Dad?” Buddy cried.

            “What did she mean, my ‘birth mother’?” Boris kept repeating.

But Henry just sat there looking at his cake.

            “I hate candy corn,” he said. “How come she knows about everyone else but me?”

           

Children’s Parties Card #5 Age of Aquarius, Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library, 1971

See Also: An International Incident, Raggedy Ann Revisited, A SNAFU In The Jungle

Our Father (Christmas), Who Art In Heaven

The basic premise of Christian theology is that the life you lead on Earth will determine if you spend eternity in Heaven, or Hell. Different doctrines hold that either your ultimate destination is predetermined and there’s nothing you can do about it; or that you’re given a last chance to renounce your sins and be granted a pass to the glorious afterworld. Still others say that you’re being watched and judged every single day, and that your behaviors have a cumulative effect, like an end-of-year grade, weighted according to your overall piety. St. Peter is traditionally seen as gatekeeper, for whom you must pass muster to be let inside the exclusive club.

On the other hand, Santa does the very same thing at Christmastime, a fact millions of children or people who have once been children, can attest (there are even picture to prove it), which begs the question: is Santa St. Peter in disguise?  

“Ho ho ho,” the big man with a beard will murmur merrily as you approach, trembling amid the whiteness. “What’s your name, little [BOY or GIRL]?”

At this you will tell him your name. Probably your formal name, the one on your birth certificate, as opposed to the nickname you have been known by your whole entire life.

“And tell me,” the portly fellow will huff, “have you been naughty or nice?”

Naturally, you’ll report having been nice. Very nice, in fact. Super-nice.

The imposing gentleman will peer at you to confirm your confession’s veracity, because he has super powers and can determine such things. “Fair enough then,” he’ll snort, “you can come in. Close the door behind you, you’ll let in the draft.”

Christmas!, Wilton Enterprises, 1992

Also from this book: Santamas

Santamas

If you think that Christmas is all about celebrating the birth of baby Jesus, you’re wrong. It’s all about Santa, and how many gifts he’s going to drop down your chimney. So instead of artfully arranging a quaint and highly unrealistic nativity scene featuring a lowly stable, the Holy family, some inquisitive animals and the Three Wise Men, get up to speed with Santamas and make an edible Santa’s Workshop instead. Let’s face it: the miracle of the season is how on Earth an old fella at the North Pole can determine if you’ve been naughty or nice all year, and select a gift especially for you that is made by elves. Elves, people.

In case you become suspicious about the substance of this glorious diorama, please be assured that the figures are made entirely of piped frosting.

Christmas!, Wilton Enterprises, 1992

Also from this book: Our Father (Christmas) Who Art in Heaven

Nights in White Frosting

The main difference between European cakes and American cakes is that the former wear their sweet creamy parts on the inside, while the latter smear it all over the outside. On the one hand it might seem preferable to be faced with the European gateau because you can see what it consists of, and can hazard a guess as to what flavor it is. On the other, it might seem preferable to hide this sort of revelation under a thick layer of white goo that gives no possible clue as to what you’ll find when you slice it open.

The cake on the far left is shrouded in anonymity — for all we know there is no cake inside, just frosting, a sleight-of-hand somewhat akin to donut holes, an item that makes no sense whatsoever except as an existential condundrum. One suspects, however, that people who eat donut holes do not suffer from such mentally taxing problems. Neither do the people who eat ready-made frosting right out of the tub, foregoing the cake altogether.

It’s a scientifically proven fact that generic birthday cake frosting is the sweetest substance yet invented by man. It was originally developed as a weapon designed to detonate an enemy’s pancreas. One bite and KABOOM. The Moody Blues employ the flute as a lead instrument, have sold over 70 million records featuring a Mellotron, and not one of them makes any sense at all. Wrap your mind around that. 

Microwave Cooking Guide, Tappan / O’Keefe &Merritt

Also from this book: Stick-Of-Sauce, Turkey a la Death